BELLUM OMNIUM CONTRA OMNES

My dear, perceptive reader, one of the immortal classics of socio-political literature is Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, written in 1651. The purpose of this post is solely to discuss the aforementioned phrase, famous today perhaps in a context different from that which Hobbes originally intended. Literally translated, it means ‘The war of every man against every other’. Hobbes intended it to refer to the concept of civil war, and how a strong governmental figure was required to counter these particular urges of man. I shall add a twist to the interpretation, and use it to discuss the concepts of Darwinian evolution and the eternal battle of idealism vs. realism.

Most believe the concepts of Darwinian evolution to be the ultimate expression of anthropocentrism, and thus it is consciously rejected by many ecologists, deep or otherwise. On the other hand, phrases such as ‘for the greater good of the species’ give middle aged couch potatoes and emotionally repressed housewives a warm glow in the belly. It is a comfortable thought, is it not? Unfortunately, the reality is as far removed from this as the earth from the sun. To quote again from Hobbes, ‘The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. A human thinks first ONLY of himself, for himself. Here, we see a shift from anthropocentrism to egocentrism, in a manner of speaking (I know the parallel is not exact, but it is the best I could come up with). Even those few ‘enlightened’ souls (note the inverted commas) who claim to put society over their selves are only deluding themselves. No one, and I mean no one, is going to act for the greater good if it harms them. It’s just not done. Not only is it impossible, but quite frankly, it is inconceivable. This is the proverbial ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. Once more, I am certain I am in for a load full of protests from all quarters, but I believe I owe it to myself.

My dear reader, I’m fairly certain that by now, you have figured out how I plan to extrapolate the argument to the idealism vs. realism debate. Nevertheless, I shall take the liberty of boring you a little further, more for my own benefit than yours. Idealists seem to believe that life is a bed of roses, devoid of thorns, of course. They actually believe that faith can move mountains. However, using a truncated form of Hobbes again, ‘The life of man is solitary’. Each man follows his individual path in life, independent of any and all others. And, considering for instance, India herself, that’s more than a billion paths. Now, as any statistics student would easily tell you, the larger the cardinality of any sample space, the more consistent the statistical mean will be, more immune to the minor deviations introduced by the vagaries of individuals. My point is this; the mean path which, in turn, is the path of the entire country, is invariant, regardless of the actions of any person. This is what sociologists call ‘Social Inertia’, and in a society the size of our country, that inertia is immense!! While we have all the power to choose our own actions and influence our own fates, the same is not true for the whole. More on this, you my dear reader must have already seen here.

With this, my dear reader, I shall take your leave for now. I hope I have impressed upon you the wisdom of Thomas Hobbes and the seeming futility of idealism (note that I mentioned ‘seeming’, more on that later). As always, I look forward to your views on the matter. Farewell… until the next time we meet!!

FULL STOP????

Humans- Homo Sapiens- by far the most intelligent species on the planet. True so far. The pinnacle of evolution, the most important species on the planet. Absolutely not!!!! That is just our anthrocentric arrogance speaking. Blasphemy, say you? Surely human beings are unique, you ask? Of course we are. After all, we have, perched between our ears, the most complicated machine on the planet. But, complexity is not the goal of evolution. Every species on the planet is unique in its own way. Uniqueness is, if anything, a commodity in oversupply. The story of a briefly abundant hairless primate originating in Africa is but a footnote in the history of life, but in the history of the hairless primate, it is central.

Human beings are an ecological success, no doubt about that. They are probably the most abundant large animal on the planet. Moreover, human beings has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to various habitats, cold or hot, dry or wet, marine or desert. No doubt, this ecological success of ours comes at a high price and we are doomed to catastrophe soon enough; for a successful species, we are remarkably pessimistic about the future. For now, we are a success.

Yet, the truth is that we come from a long line of failures. We are apes, a group that almost went extinct 15 million years ago in competition with the better designed monkeys. We are primates, a group of mammals that almost went extinct 45 million years ago in competition with the better designed rodents. We are synapsid tetrapods, a group of reptiles that almost went extinct 200 million years ago in competition with the dinosaurs. We are descended from limbed fishes, which almost went extinct 360 million years ago in competition with the better designed ray finned fishes. We are chordates, a phylum that survived the Cambrian era 500 million years ago by the skin of its teeth in competition with the brilliantly successful arthropods. Our success has come against humbling odds.

How did we survive? At all times, the specter of natural selection was waiting to claim us, and yet it was him who gave us the proverbial boost up the ladder, the ability to evolve, to compete, to carve out our own little niche. And yet, today, the same forces are kept at bay by us, consciously. The sheer arrogance of it all is overwhelming. Our superior medical technology implies that almost no-one dies before they reach reproductive age. This causes ‘bad genes’, which otherwise would have been weeded out to return to the pool. Obviously, the alternative to this is not acceptable in our society any longer. Merely considering it would make us as bad as the Francis Galton with his eugenic principles or perhaps the Nazis. Ethically, we have an obligation to save those who we can. Agreed. This now leaves mutation as the only source for variation in the pool. And yet, in out society, mutants of any kind, physical, physiological or psychological are just not given equal standing. They are shunned, perhaps not consciously, but shunned nevertheless.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, our parasites are becoming more and more streamlined. With an absurdly low generation time, they can evolve around and over anything we throw at them in absolutely no time at all. In the war between us and the parasites, right now, we are losing!!

Some say, human evolution is not at a standstill, it is merely very slow. They tell us not to worry, that as and when the attack becomes more serious, natural selection will swing back into action. Is that really what it will take?? A pandemic?? Isn’t that too much of a risk? Will any of us survive?

The average lifetime for a species is about 10 million years. We have been around perhaps half that time, and have yet not spawned a daughter species. Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic, but the more I think about it, the more I am certain that unless we change soon, the doom of our species awaits. And I weep, not for our species, for we always knew we were but ephemeral, not for life, for it will go on, with or without us, but for intelligence and perception. And, in this, I have no comforting shoulder to weep upon!!!

*(This post borrows heavily from Matt Ridley’s “Genome”, a must read for any student of life-sciences)

THE DISEASE OF DOUBT

Basic human needs: food, clothing, shelter……… praise and reassurance??? My dear perceptive reader, I have wondered more than once what it is about the human psyche that makes most of us inherently insecure; so much so that we need the approval of others??

I understand the Darwinian concepts of ‘acceptance of the herd’ and all those other old, dried out clichés about man being a social animal that people seem so fond of perpetrating, but some part of me has always viewed this almost puppy-like seeking of society’s approval as, frankly, childish. All it accomplishes, I fear, is to expose ones inherent insecurity, fear, self-doubt and vulnerability. And, surely, it can’t be a good idea to display your weaknesses for all to see, can it?

As far as I can see, this trait of our species takes on two forms. Firstly, there is the need for emotional reassurance. I have lost count of the number of articles I have read in various newspapers or Readers Digest and similar magazines which essentially say, open up to your loved ones; tell them how much you care. While a certain part of me can see the logic the author(s) of these articles are trying to put forth, another, much more dominant part of me, dismisses it outright. I am, by nature, an intensely private person, so much so, it is actually an colossal effort for me to truly open up, as you, my perceptive reader, have no doubt already figured out from the fumbling nature of this post. All that said and done, I find that I am at total peace with myself. I know my exact position in the lives of those around myself, and am content. I suffer no illusions about my importance in the life of others, nor do I, on the other hand, consider myself to be unimportant. (And no, no matter what you think, this is not a form of narcissism)

Surprisingly for me, a vast majority of the human race has still to come to terms with themselves in this respect as I have myself done. Trouble is, I expect others around me to have the same degree of self-possession I do, and therefore run into conflict many times with friends and family, who keep trying to get me to ‘open up’, as they put it, to let them know what they mean to me. For all their efforts, they might as well try to coax a Harley into climbing a tree by it own. My opinion is, if you do not already know, or if you still have doubts, nothing I can ever say will erase them, will it? (Of course, this opinion of mine might well be influenced by my own private nature, of which I have already made mention) Not needing any praise or reassurances myself, I am, I believe, understandably reluctant to dole them out either.

The second, and to me, even more surprising form this insecurity takes, is professional. Emotional insecurity, if not justifiable, is at the least understandable. Emotions are not exactly the most scrutable of things, I grant you that much. But your work?? Clearly, there are objective standards to which what you do, whatever you do, must live up to! Do other’s personal opinions really matter?? Do you not just KNOW, for yourselves, how good or bad your work is? Surely, surely, you are the best of yourself!! Again, I find a vast majority of the human population look to others for approval. (Also again, thus far, I, thankfully, seem immune to this malaise)

Frankly, this worries me! Somehow I have this gut feeling that this constant human vulnerability compromises the productivity of our lives. Of course, I may be wrong. It may well be, that what I portray as a malaise may indeed be the norm, and it is I who am the diseased one, the odd one out! Yet, somehow, I do not think so. But I am, I believe, wise enough to realize that my intuition might be a consequence of the very nature I describe above. Am I deluding myself? My dear, perceptive reader, I would appreciate your views on the matter.

*(Before you should comment on the matter, as I have no doubt you will, I acknowledge that my last paragraph seems a lot like the very problem of insecurity I consider myself immune to. The thing is, the mind is indeed a complex object, very often inscrutable. The borders between intellectual curiosity and insecurity are too fuzzy to be put down into words. I believe myself to be on the right side of that border. You, my perceptive reader, are, of course, very welcome to your own opinion)

THE WHIP BEHIND THE MULE.

I’m willing to bet everyone reading this remembers the childhood tale about the hare and the tortoise. Most likely, all of us have also gleaned a valuable life lesson from it, and much more such blah!! However, I have always had a general wonderment about certain aspects of the story.

My first query runs thus: what would have happened if the hare, upon hearing some small noise the tortoise made as it passed him, had awoken and actually seen the tortoise passing him?? Would he have still neglected the tortoise as a threat, it being as slow moving as it is, and continue to rest in the certainty that he would be able to make up any deficit over the tortoise; or would the hare have been galvanized to action, sprinting forward, unwilling to give the tortoise any length of the stick whatsoever?? Would the tale, perhaps, have ended differently?? Granted, if it ended on a different note, the moral it was fabricated to teach in the first place would be lost, but then this is more of an abstract thought exercise than anything concrete at all!

Secondly, and this I think is more worthy of thought than the first, what if the hare had decided to rest in such a place where he could see the finish, the proverbial flag at the end of the road? Would he have been able to bring himself to rest in the first place?? Or perhaps, would he find it more appealing to finish the race and then rest, a rest which would then have a certain finality to it?? Again, the moral is lost in this case, but my excuse, the same as the first one, stands firm.

The point I’m trying to make is essentially an analogy: what is it about humans that requires either a definite goal or a sense of competition in order to drive us towards excellence?? Why cant the human mind, when deprived of both of the above, namely when it is aimless and wandering, perform productively? Why is it that we, as a species, lack a driving force, when devoid of both a clearly perceivable target and competition to achieve that target??

The chronicler has no answers to the questions posed? He does not even comprehend whether the questions are profound or naïve. It is to you, perceptive reader, that he looks for answers. Here’s to the hope that you shall provide.